


Blossom

by rusting_roses



Category: Star Trek AOS
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-28
Updated: 2010-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusting_roses/pseuds/rusting_roses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/"></a><b>where_no_woman</b> First Anniversary Ficathon prompt, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anais Nin".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blossom

They called us _sheiga_.

 _Sheiga_.

To be _sheiga_ was to be lucky. We were not the two _sevna_ whores by the side of the road that could barely scrape enough together to eat. We were not to be used and then killed so the man did not have to feed us or care for us. We were not the war prizes, kidnapped from our homes to be their playthings or sold again for profit.

And yet we were not lucky, for we were all of those things.

If we did not prostitute ourselves well enough, we would not be given food. When we got too old, the _namachiha_ , our House, sold us to the highest bidder; we were used to our last and then killed so our last act would be one for the greater good of the House, as they would then no longer have to feed or care for us. We were not war prizes in the strictest sense, but only in that we were not prizes from a war, or kidnapped within the Orion system - instead, we were sold by our families to turn an extra bit of coin; our families treated us as playthings, little more than an item to be used to turn a profit.

Within the _namachiha_ , the word _sheiga_ was never spoken. Outside those walls, it may mean that we were the lucky ones, but we all knew we were the worst off. Our status did not save us from the beatings, from the training for the pleasure of the males and females that would request us, from infection or injury or heartache. We were the gilded ones, for our makeup hid our bruises and put a thin veneer of joy over the depths of Orion suffering.

I had grown up like this, however. The _namachiha_ was the only home I’d ever known; the _sheiga_ were my sisters in a way deeper than blood, bound together by mutual suffering even if we didn‘t particularly care for each other. My _nadan_ , the male or female who was my patron, was the closest thing I had to a lover, the closest thing I’d ever seen to a true kindness.

Madeiva was my _nadan_ starting in my eighteenth year, and in her presence I felt the closest thing to peace and hope. Or so I believed; I’d only read about both things before, but the descriptions seemed to match what I felt when she smiled at me. She was in her forties, but she was the first one to kiss me instead of simply tearing at my lips and skin with her teeth. She was the first one to make my breath hitch in pleasure instead of pain. She gave me my first orgasm, and held me as I cried when I came down from my high, shaken and frightened from the pleasure. I knew how to fake an orgasm, of course, to fake pleasure to please my clients, but Madeiva wasn’t fooled and I came apart under her too clever fingers.

Madeiva was more than my _nadan_. She was my life, my love, my universe, and I would have ripped apart the stars to please her.

I was twenty one when I was finally permitted to go out of the _namachiha_ or its surrounding town for the first time in my entire life. I was to act as Madeiva’s consort for the weekend, accompanying her to her company’s party to celebrate their new product. I wasn’t entirely clear on the details, but I knew well enough that I was simply there to smile and look exceedingly beautiful, so that everyone else in the room might be jealous that my nadan was wealthy enough to take me away from the _namachiha_ for three whole days.

Everything went without a hitch, of course, for I had mastered the arts of the _sheiga_. I made elegant and pleasing conversation, complimenting everyone and yet no one, up to date on the latest politics and culture, for all that I hadn’t been out of the _namachiha_ before. I was a credit to the House and to my patron, and Madeiva’s pleased smile was worth even more to me than the sex we had afterwards.

Madeiva wished to give me one last gift, however, and took me out into the city proper our final night together. We dined on the best food I’d ever had, and at the end, back in her suite, she gifted me with a necklace of Terran mined silver set with _opiine_ and sapphires. The blue and purple of the stones and the silver of the setting looked amazing against the green of my skin, and I wore it immediately, blushing prettily when Madeiva complimented how well it looked on me. I thanked her effusively, but she simply waved my words away.

“You deserve that and more,” she said simply. “You are so much more than a _sheiga_. You deserve to have the world for your taking.”

“Madeiva,” I said with a sigh. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her say that, but I didn’t dare accept the words as truth. If they were, why had I been sold? Why had I spent a cheerless childhood being beaten and laying on my back? Why had I never attended a formal school, for all that I knew to read and write? Why wasn’t I given books to learn more as I so dearly wanted? Why?

Why?

“Please,” Madeiva begged, “Please listen to me! If not as your _nadan_ , then as your friend, your lover!”

I was silenced by that, shocked to be named so warmly, to be named so dear to the heart as friend and love. I couldn’t help climbing into Madeiva’s lap, kissing her fiercely, trying to give my thanks that way, trying to give her my soul for safe-keeping, because with her I wasn’t _sheiga_ , I was just Gaila, beautiful, beloved, beguiling Gaila who was so much more than the role she was locked into in the Orion society.

I had nothing to give her but my heart, but she took it and gave me hers in turn, and I let the tears stream down my cheeks.

“There is a place, my love,” she gasped between kisses, “Where you can be all that you are and more. There you will not be _sheiga_ , but you will be Gaila and Gaila only. I cannot go with you. If you leave, we will probably never see each other again.” Madeiva twisted until I was on the couch, and her lips left mine in order to trace patterns on my neck, teeth scraping against my collarbone. I shuddered beneath her, pressing my hips to hers, needing Madeiva like I needed air. I craved her, couldn’t be without her, couldn’t think of her words because they terrified me too deeply.

Her lips grazed my sensitive stomach as she said, “If we can get you to the Federation, you can become a free individual and never fear the Orion Syndicate or government. You can build yourself a life there, Gaila.” She sucked marks to life on my hipbones and I knew that I was crying somewhere distantly, but couldn’t stop myself.

“Don’t make me go!” I cried. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?” I gripped her hair as she nipped my inner thighs, and the slight pain only made me arch my back. “Stop!” I cried, gathering myself and fighting her, trying to scramble away. She couldn’t confess her love, couldn’t make me desire her so desperately and try to get rid of me in the same breath. My heart, so taxed from my short life already, couldn’t handle it, no matter how much I wanted to give my nadan the benefit of the doubt.

Madeiva kissed her way back up my body, running her hands along my sides to calm my trembling. “No, my darling,” she soothed. “Relax, I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, Gaila.” She gently sucked on my neck a little more and blew gently against the mark, cooing gently. When I finally closed my eyes, tilting my head to allow her advances, Madeiva let out a little sigh of relief that made me relax even further. This was Madeiva, who had shown me even the smallest of kindnesses with true joy, and it was clear that she had no interest in taking me by force. “Relax, sweetheart. Please trust me, Gaila. I love you,” she swore, and I realized with a shock that she was crying too. I stilled, going lax under her, staring at her ceiling, aghast.

No one had ever cried for me before.

A wash of emotions too complicated to even begin to describe welled up within me, and I kissed away Madeiva‘s tears, whispering my own reassurances in return, desperate to show her the same depth of affection. I opened everything I had to her, lying prone beneath her. Madeiva still straddled my hips, but she leaned her head against my shoulder, making no move to take advantage of my open form, and I managed to fall a little further in love with her.

“I love you, hopelessly, terribly, in ways that are beyond my control,” she murmured against my skin, and the heat of her breath branded the words into my skin. “And so I will do the only thing I can to give you the greatest gift possible. I will give you your freedom.”

I lifted my hands to her waist, clutching her desperately. “No, I don’t need you to do that,” I promised, and I knew my grip would leave dark bruises. “Please, please, I swear that you’re enough, you’re enough! I don’t need anything else. Don’t leave me!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Madeiva finally shouted, clutching my hands. “I’m trying to save you!”

The made me go silent for a moment. “Gaila, at best you’ll be a _sheiga_ for another ten years, and that’s if you become one of the most successful sheiga in your _namachiha_. You’ll probably be around for another five at best before they sell you to the highest bidder, who will kill you. But if you try to get out now, before you’re at risk, you’ve got a high chance of actually getting out of the Orion system and into the Federation. Surely you understand that it’s your only chance to actually get out. You are too wise, too clever, too intelligent to waste your entire life here. I cannot let you die without doing anything to stop it.”

“But I’m afraid,” I choked out, and Madeiva kissed away my tears.

“There comes a time,” she whispered, and her voice was the only thing that existed in the universe, “when the risk to remain tight in a bud will more painful than the risk it takes to blossom. You cannot stay as you are forever, Gaila, not without doing irreparable damage to your soul, the soul that showed such possibility for hope and love and kindness, to a level that I haven’t ever seen in another person. I did not fall in love with your body or your mind- I fell in love with all that you are, and if your soul is damaged, I will lose that. I want you to take your love, our love, and use it to forge a better future for our people, for the people of all the worlds who are _sheiga_ without hope.”

~*~

Of course I agreed.

How could I do otherwise in the face of her conviction that I deserved more, that I deserved better?

So I agreed to blossom, agreed to become more than what I was to save myself at the cost of Madeiva; since the day that I left, I have heard not one word of her, of the woman who made me see that there is more to this world than the _namachiha_ , than _nadan_ , than being a _sheiga_ of the Orion system. There is love and loss and hope and simple kindness from strangers. I don’t know so much as if she lives still or is dead, let alone how she fares these days. I worry constantly if someone realized that she was the one that helped me escape, and I wonder why she didn’t come with me, though I suspect that she may have had a hand in other escapees. I have no proof of it, and I cannot fault her for wanting to save others, but sometimes I wish that she had cared for the universe a little less and loved me a little more. I had cried myself to sleep more than once, wishing she was at my side to give me strength.

From the little apartment that is still more than I had at the _namachiha_ , I look at the stars on Earth that carry the Orion system at its heart, and wonder if I’ve done Madeiva justice, if my joining the Starfleet Academy was what she meant by becoming myself, becoming more than I could have ever been at the namachiha. I’d like to think so, since I feel like beneath the bureaucracy they mean well, and I‘ve been happy here, even if I‘ve lost love in the process. I can eat as I please. I am not beaten. I do not have sex against my will. There is no one here who can legally sell me. I will not be killed for outliving my use. I’ve met people here who don’t look at me and call me whore, slut, bitch.

I am not a _sheiga_ here.

I am free.

I am Gaila of Orion, who is her own self.

And I have blossomed.


End file.
